Sometimes, unplugging everything from your PC and opening it up just to find out what the model of the motherboard or PCI card is turns out to be a real pain.  There are a few utilities out there that you can simply run and they will tell you what hardware and software live in your PC.

One of the more popular system audit applications is Belarc Advisor.  After installing, you can run it, and it generates an HTML report listing installed hardware and software.  It’s very easy to use.

Another (albeit lesser-known) system audit application is SIW.  This one requires no installation, and offers excessive detail on installed hardware and software.  To build a report, simply go to the “File” menu > “Create Report” and click “HTML”.  This will create a report in an HTML file that will be fairly easy to navigate.  Just let me stress this is a highly detailed report.  If you click the “Options” button on the report generator window that pops up, it will allow you to select what areas of detail you want to see in the report.

Either one of these are handy tools to put on your USB flash drive.  Be sure to give each one a couple minutes or so to build the reports.